Big 12 Conference Seen As Major Winners After Tulane's Upset Loss
Most of the time, bye weeks are seen as advantageous since it allows teams to get healthy and have an extra week of prep, but for the Tulane Green Wave, they likely would have preferred to keep playing considering they were red-hot in conference play and peaking at the right time.
Unfortunately, their momentum came to a crashing halt on Thanksgiving.
When welcoming in Memphis for their regular season finale, Tulane had multiple self-inflicted wounds that gave the Tigers enough of an edge to pull off the upset.
The Green Wave are still in the American Athletic Conference championship game, but their dream of crashing the College Football Playoff party likely ended with that defeat.
It's a tough pill to swallow for Tulane who was starting to be viewed as the best Group of 5 team based on the way they had been playing, as that loss officially closes the door on two non-Power 4 programs getting into the CFP.
The greatest benefactor from Memphis beating Tulane is the Big 12 Conference.
The parody in that league created the possibility of the G5 getting two teams in, especially because the SEC was projected to only have three representatives in the College Football Playoff based on the losses those schools had accumulated.
But, that ended on Thursday.
Even if the Big 12 Conference champion has three or even four losses, the fact that Tulane or Army will win the AAC won't move the needle for the committee since the Green Wave now have three losses of their own and the Black Knights were dominated by Notre Dame.
Regardless of this disappointing reality, Tulane still had a great season.
Their two defeats prior to Thursday were against Power 4 schools Kansas State and Oklahoma, and when the schedule got into conference play, they were able to showcase they are still one of the best teams in the AAC even after Willie Fritz left to take the Houston head coaching job.
Jon Sumrall seems to be the right man to lead this program, and if his first year at the helm is any indication of what's to come, then the Green Wave will be knocking on the door of the CFP next season and beyond.
